MEXICO – Betty Barrett believes that people shouldn’t just sit back and complain. If they are unhappy with something, they should get involved.
Barrett, now 80, has done just that for much of her life.
She was the first woman to sit on the Mexico Board of Selectmen, and only the second to sit on the town’s budget committee. She is currently one of Mexico’s representatives to the SAD 43 board, a position she has held for nine years.
“I’ve always been interested in what’s happening, I want to know the reasons why. I feel if you’re going to open your mouth and say something, you’ve got to put something behind it, and you’ve got to know what you’re talking about. Then, if it’s not good, try to fix it,” she said Thursday afternoon in the living room of her home on Brook Street.
She grew up not far from the home she and her husband, Walston, built in 1948.
She’s never lived anywhere but Mexico, and is a graduate of Mexico High School, Class of 1942.
“I’ve always been very happy in this small town,” she said.
She and her husband, who died in 1996, raised six children.
“The most important thing is the happiness of my family. We wanted them to become good citizens and to do what makes them happy,” she said, sure that the choices they made were the right ones. “We brought our children up to laugh at themselves and to have a good sense of humor.”
Betty, born Bertha Richards, has a hearty, infectious laugh that people recognize.
“I have a very positive outlook. If we don’t, we project it. If someone can’t say something positive, I feel bad,” she said.
And she also believes people should stand up for what they believe, and if they are wrong, they should admit it.
She was serving on the Board of Selectmen when the Rumford School Department and SAD 43 merged.
At first, she opposed it because she thought Mexico’s share of school costs would increase. She also grew up in a period when Mexico and Rumford were competitors. But she soon realized it was time.
“The student enrollment had gone down, and (with the merger) we were able to expand programs. The students have so much more now,” she said.
Always to be involved in something, she was on the board during the creation of Med-Care Ambulance Service in the late 1980s, and on the board for the Western Maine Area Agency on Aging.
She worked for the pre-merged SAD 43 from 1963 to 1987.
When she’s not involved in the town or the school district, she knits sweaters for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and is an avid reader of Zane Grey westerns, mysteries and historical novels, and attends the Mexico Baptist Church.
And she treasures her family gatherings.
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